Trade liberalisation and child labour in China

Liqui Zhao (), Fei Wang () and Zhong Zhao
Additional contact information
Liqui Zhao: Renmin University
Fei Wang: Renmin University

No 2016-054, MERIT Working Papers from United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT)

Abstract: This paper exploits a quasi-natural experiment-the U.S. granting of Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) to China after China's accession to the World Trade Organization-to examine whether trade liberalisation affects the incidence of child labour in China. PNTR permanently set U.S. duties on Chinese imports at low Normal Trade Relations (NTR) levels and removed the uncertainty associated with annual renewals of China's NTR status. We find that the PNTR was significantly associated with the rising incidence of child labour in China. A one percentage point decrease in average export tariffs raises the odds of child labour by a 1.3 percentage point. The effects are greater for girls, older children, rural children, and children with less-educated parents. The effect of trade liberalisation on the incidence of child labour, however, disappears in the long run, because trade liberalisation can induce exporters to upgrade technology and thus have less demand for unskilled workers.

Keywords: Child labour; Trade liberalisation; Trade policy uncertainty; Difference-in-differences; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F14 F16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-10-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna and nep-int
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://unu-merit.nl/publications/wppdf/2016/wp2016-054.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Trade Liberalization and Child Labor in China (2016)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:unm:unumer:2016054

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MERIT Working Papers from United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ad Notten ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).